Abstract
In adults and older children, evidence consistent with relative separation between selective and sustained attention, superimposed upon generally positive inter-test correlations, has been reported. Here we examine whether this pattern is detectable in 5-year-old children from the healthy population. A new test battery (TEA-ChJ) was adapted from measures previously used with adults and older children and administered to 172 5-year-olds. Test-retest reliability was assessed in 60 children. Ninety-eight percent of the children managed to complete all measures. Discrimination of visual and auditory stimuli were good. In a factor analysis, the two TEA-ChJ selective attention tasks (one visual, one auditory) loaded onto a common factor and diverged from the two sustained attention tasks (one auditory, one motor), which shared a common loading on the second factor. This pattern, which suggests that the tests are indeed sensitive to underlying attentional capacities, was supported by the relationships between the TEA-ChJ factors and Test of Everyday Attention for Children subtests in the older children in the sample. It is possible to gain convincing performance-based estimates of attention at the age of 5 with the results reflecting a similar factor structure to that obtained in older children and adults. The results are discussed in light of contemporary models of attention function. Given the potential advantages of early intervention for attention difficulties, the findings are of clinical as well as theoretical interest.
Highlights
In adults, attention processes have been primarily linked with extensive fronto-parietal networks [1,2,3]
The relatively late mylination of the prefrontal cortex [4], the role of genetic polymorphisms in determining distinct cognitive phenotypes [5] and the ubiquity of attentional problems across a range of childhood disorders have led to considerable interest in when, and in what form, these capacities emerge and develop
We examined whether separable behavioral signatures of selective and sustained attention, similar to those seen in older children and adults, were detectable in a large group of 5-year-old children
Summary
Attention processes have been primarily linked with extensive fronto-parietal networks [1,2,3]. The relatively late mylination of the prefrontal cortex [4], the role of genetic polymorphisms in determining distinct cognitive phenotypes [5] and the ubiquity of attentional problems across a range of childhood disorders have led to considerable interest in when, and in what form, these capacities emerge and develop. There are important discussions about whether and how the developing brain probabilistically ‘evolves’ towards a relatively more fixed adult modular structure. Influential accounts within this framework stress the potential importance of basic capacities, such as attention, in mediating this process [6]. Observational rating scales are important tools in this field. Scerif et al [7], for example, delineated distinct patterns of errors in young children with Fragile X and Williams syndrome, not apparent through observation, using a computerised visual search task
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